The
War Debate on Iran

A
survey of Israeli State pronouncements, documents and press releases
echoed by its resident representatives in the Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations and their supporters writing and speaking in the
major media reveals a concerted effort to convince the United States to
militarily attack Iran. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Israel’s top US
ideologues promulgated documents and propaganda manifestos, purporting to
be strategy papers directed toward joint US-Israeli aggression against
Iraq, Syria and especially Iran. [1]

Even
as the bricks were still smoldering from 9/11, Israeli ideological point
men, Senator Lieberman and Undersecretary for Defense Wolfowitz urged
Washington to attack Iran by launching either simultaneous or sequential
wars. In pursuit of Israel’s regional priorities, its representatives in
the US Government, in the Pentagon (Wolfowitz, Feith and Shulsky), in the
National Security Council (Abrams), in the Vice President’s Office (Libby)
and in the President’s Office (Speech writer Frum) falsified intelligence,
designed the propaganda (War Against Terror, Axis of Evil) and planned the
War against Iraq, and with the Lobby secured near unanimous Congressional
acquiescence. They then successfully secured a US boycott of Syria and
support for Israel’s expropriation, annexation and settlement of
Palestinian land in the West Bank and the destruction of Gaza. Even as
the US invasion failed to secure control of Iraq, Israel’s representatives
in the US Government did destroy Iraqi society and state, and its capacity
to support the Palestinian resistance, increasing Israel’s regional power
(at a very high cost to the United States).

Even
as the US was at war with Iraq, even as it suffered over 20,000 dead and
wounded, even as its war spending rose to over $430 billion dollars, even
as the bulk of its ground troops were stretched thin, Israel’s
representatives in the Executive and Congress and through the Lobby pushed
for a US pre-emptive attack on Iran.

Within
the US government, Israeli representatives faced several objections from
the State Department and active military officers to a pre-emptive
military attack on Iran:

1. An
attack on Iran would lead to a large-scale cross border invasion of Iraq,
endangering the precarious position of US troops.

2. Hezbollah, Syria and other Iranian allies would likely act in
solidarity with Iran, and launch reprisals against US client supporters in
Lebanon, the Gulf States and elsewhere in the Middle East.

3. An
attack would totally isolate the US from its European, Arab and Asian
allies, forcing the US to assume the total burden of the war.

4. Iran could block the Hormuz Straits, blocking the flow of oil to Europe
and Asia.

Preparing for War

In
response, Israel’s representatives in the US formulated a series of
policies to get around these objections.

In the
first place, they, along with the Israeli secret police and their Lebanese
collaborators, and with the approval of the US-dominated United Nations
Security Council, successfully implicated Syria as the author of the
February 14, 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik
Baha’eddin Al-Hariri, on the basis of recanted testimony from a single
perjured ‘witness’. On that basis, the US-UN forced Syria to withdraw its
forces from Lebanon, thus hoping to isolate Hezbollah and other
anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. Once Syria was out of
Lebanon, the US with Israeli approval secured a client regime in Beirut, a
regime nonetheless that only had influence in the center-north of the
country. Hezbollah remained the most influential force in Southern Lebanon
and much of South Beirut and impregnable from any military machinations
emanating from Beirut.

In
2004 the US and France co-sponsored UN Resolution 1559 which called for
“the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese
militias.” This extraordinary interference by the Security Council in
Lebanon’s internal politics was clearly a set-up for Israel’s 2006
invasion.

Washington in co-ordination with Israel continued its ‘salami tactics’
chipping away at real or potential opponents to absolute US-Israeli
regional control. By isolating Syria, destroying Gaza and ‘surrounding’
Hezbollah (or so they thought), they believed they were moving closer to
isolating Iran. In June 2006, Israel proceeded to invade and demolish
Gaza, arrest the Hamas political leadership in order to install a new
client regime. In the same month, Presidential Adviser on Middle Eastern
Affairs, Elliot Abrams, in close consultation with the Israeli military
command, gave the green light to invade Lebanon in order to destroy
Hezbollah as a step toward the strategic goal of isolating Iran and
overcoming US military fears of retaliation from a pre-emptive bombing of
Iran.

Parallel to the US-Israeli coordinated invasion of Lebanon and Gaza,
Washington and the Jewish Lobby were working the diplomatic track. They
sought to secure UN approval for a multi-lateral boycott in opposition to
Iran’s legal uranium enrichment program. In the case of Gaza, the Lobby
secured unanimous White House, Congressional and mass media support for
labeling the electorally oriented Hamas, as a ‘terrorist’
organization. Paradoxically President Bush supported the ‘free elections’
in the Palestinian territories as well as Hamas’ decision to go to the
ballot box. The Lobby then followed Bush’s endorsement of the ‘free
and democratic’ nature of the electoral process in Palestine by pressuring
the US Congress and the White House to cut all aid and contact with the
democratically elected Hamas government. The White House then pressured
the European Union to follow suit. Israel blocked all trade and supply
routes, and illegally refused to hand over Palestinian tax revenues to the
newly elected government. Israel moved to asphyxiate the Palestinian
economy. The Lobby secured US endorsement of the Israeli policy.

Six
months into a murderous campaign, Israel escalated its armed incursions
into Gaza and the West Bank, by deliberately killing civilians, families
and children who were engaged in the most innocent activities, such as
family outings at the beach. These grotesque Israeli provocations were
intended to push the democratically elected Hamas into breaking its
17-month unilateral ceasefire. A Palestinian attack to incapacitate an
Israeli tank emplacement near the frontier shelling Gaza and the capture
of an Israeli soldier served as the pretext for a full-scale invasion of
Gaza. The Israeli government systematically destroyed most of the basic
life-supporting infrastructure (water treatment and power plants, sewage
systems, roads, bridges, hospitals and schools) and arrested the top
executive and legislative leadership of the elected Palestinian
Authority. Israel killed over 251 Palestinians in the first two months of
its ‘Summer Rain’ campaign against Gaza, injured over 5000 -- mostly
civilians (Haaretz, September 4, 2006). Following the Lebanon
debacle Israel unleashed a massive ‘kill and destroy’ campaign.

The Lobby silenced any dissenting voices and
secured near unanimous Congressional and automatic Executive endorsement
for Israel’s policies toward Gaza. Israel’s stranglehold over Gaza
weakened any organized Palestinian opposition to a pre-emptive attack on
Iran.

Where
the Israeli military invasion of Lebanon failed to destroy Hezbollah, the
Lobby succeeded in pushing the US to secure a major diplomatic victory via
the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UN Res. 1701) on a
‘ceasefire’. The entire resolution was verbatim a replica of Israeli
strategic aims for destroying Hezbollah, dividing Lebanon, securing its
military primacy in Lebanon and isolating Iran. The approval of the
resolution followed the usual multi-step process: Israel set the terms,
the Lobby organized its apparatus to push Congress and the White House.
Washington presented the resolution to the Security Council and pressured
its members to approve it. The resolution was approved and the military,
economic and diplomatic processes were set in motion, with Kofi Annan
serving as point man for the US-Israeli strategy.

To say
that the ceasefire resolution is ‘one-sided’ and biased in favor of Israel
is an understatement. The problem is in the very terms and
premises of the resolution. Israel invaded Lebanon. A country, which
invades another, destroys the entire civilian infrastructure and 15,000
housing units and kills over 1,100 of its citizens, is considered by
international law to be the ‘aggressor’. A buffer zone or
demilitarized region should be located within the borders of the
aggressor country -- namely a twenty-kilometer area within the Israeli
frontier. This is the common practice with states with long histories of
military intervention into neighboring countries. This is especially the
case since Israel initiated the bombing of Lebanon and Israel invaded
Lebanon and not vice versa. Instead, the resolution provided for the
United Nations forces to occupy Lebanese territory and to eliminate its
first line of national defense -- namely the complex of bunkers and
underground tunnels which Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance organized
as civil defense against the onslaught of Israeli bombs, missiles,
artillery and invading infantry.

Secondly the United Nations resolution called for the displacement,
dissolution and disarming of the defenders (Hezbollah) of the invaded
country instead of the invaders (the Israeli Defense (sic) Forces --
IDF). In line with Israeli strategy, this proposal was meant to accomplish
via the UN military what Israel’s IDF was not able to do.

Thirdly while the resolution proposed that Hezbollah was to be forced to
disarm or at least ‘hide’ its arms, Israeli armaments, occupation soldiers
and over flights remained in place within Lebanon, ready and eager to bomb
and attack the Lebanese resistance as its Prime Minister and Defense
Minister publicly declared (and practiced on several occasions).

Fourthly, while Hezbollah agreed to the ceasefire, Israel did not. Israel
retains its air and sea blockade, which are ‘acts of war’ according to
International law, and upholds the ‘right’ to freely send commandos and
assassination teams into Lebanon. The UN and Kofi Annan have not
denounced Israel’s non-compliance. The US, on the other hand, has endorsed
Israel’s non-compliance.

Fifthly, Israel has insisted and the UN resolution proposed that Lebanese
troops patrol the border, hunt down and destroy Hezbollah arms and
activists, thus hoping to promote a sectarian civil war and divide Lebanon
into a fragmented, dysfunctional state in place of the coalition
government (which includes Hezbollah) that existed prior to and during and
after the Israeli invasion. In response Hezbollah has not disarmed
although it has agreed to not permit its fighters to openly carry arms in
public. Hezbollah has not resisted the placement of Lebanese soldiers on
the Israeli frontier; rather it has fraternized with them.

In
this most perverse of all ceasefire resolutions, the aggressor (Israel)
retains its arms, its occupation of Lebanese land, sea and air space, and
increases its purchase of offensive weapons. The Lobby pushes the US/UN to
encircle Hezbollah, control Lebanon’s border with Syria (thus losing
sovereignty) and stop the flow of any defensive weapons to replenish the
supply depleted defending the country from Israeli invaders.

The
Israeli/US/UN resolution is designed to isolate the Lebanese resistance
from Syria and Iran, and to weaken any common Arab solidarity if and when
Iran and Syria are attacked.

Kofi
‘the Gopher’ (a pejorative American term for an errand boy or flunkey)
Annan, nominally the UN Secretary General, but known by UN insiders as
Washington’s -- and therefore the Lobby’s -- messenger, went on a ‘peace’
mission to the Middle East. His purpose was not to open negotiations over
a prisoner exchange between Lebanon-Hezbollah and Israel but to secure the
unilateral release of the two captured Israeli prisoners of war. Never at
any moment did he mention the key demand of the Lebanese, which was the
release of the unlawfully imprisoned 1,000 Lebanese civilians and
combatants suffering in Israeli prisons, many of whom have been held
without charges or trial for years. For Annan, articulating Israel’s
demands for prisoner release was the only issue to be discussed. When
Syria agreed to work with Annan on a negotiated reciprocal
Israeli-Lebanese prisoner release and Israel rejected the offer, Annan
refused to criticize Israeli intransigence and continued mouthing their
demand for an unconditional, unilateral prisoner release.

It is
clear that Israel and the US-Jewish Lobby are trying to build on the
pro-Israeli ceasefire resolution and its implementation to widen and
deepen inroads in Lebanese politics, control its security policy and erode
its sovereignty by buying off sectors of the Beirut elite with
‘reconstruction aid’ while keeping Israel on a wartime footing within,
around and above Lebanon.

The
‘ceasefire’ agreement is in effect a ‘mousetrap’ offering donors’
assistance (cheese) to the weak and vacillating Beirut regime
(particularly its rightwing, pro-Western sectors) and the iron clamp of
air, sea and land encirclement and military attacks by Israeli and UN
collaborators on a disarmed Hezbollah.

The
Jewish Lobby has ensured 100% White House and US Congressional support for
Israel’s continued air and sea blockade and its demands for disarming and
destroying Hezbollah as conditions for withdrawing from its territorial
occupation of Lebanon.

Even
worse, as the UN begins its occupation of Lebanon and Israeli retains its
military presence, Tel Aviv ‘re-interprets’ the ceasefire to ensure its
forward position within Lebanon. Israel demands the release of its two
prisoners of war, the destruction of Hezbollah before considering the
ending if its occupation and blockade. Israel insists that the UN
troops control the Syrian border before conforming to the terms of
the agreement and withdrawing its own troops. No mention is made of the UN
patrolling Israel’s borders with Gaza which Israel crosses daily on its
way to murder and assassinate Palestinians. In other words, as the UN
erodes the position of the Lebanese resistance and strengthens the Israeli
militarily, Israel neither negotiates nor reciprocates – it escalates new
and harsher demands. All of this is backed by the Jewish Lobby and its
highly placed officials in the Executive branch and US Congress. The
purpose of this complex United Nations maneuver is to neutralize any
Lebanese opposition to the escalation of US-Israeli aggression against
Iran.

Diplomacy for Confrontation and War

Parallel to and converging with the Lebanese ‘mousetrap’ strategy, the US
with a powerful push from the Lobby have moved to secure United Nations
Security Council support for a series of diplomatic measures and economic
sanctions against Iran. The UN Security Council prompted by the US and
Europe is making demands in total contradiction to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty allowing all countries in the world at any time to enrich uranium
for peaceful uses, thus provoking a major confrontation with Iran. These
illegal and presumptuous demands have absolutely no basis in law and in
fact: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is no
evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. The US has taken a
step-by-step approach to preparing for pre-emptive war with Iran, in order
to minimize its (the US) isolation, the heavy financial and human costs
and the prospects of retaliation. Washington has prepared a resolution
calling for economic sanctions -- limiting travel and investment. Once the
principle of economic sanctions is in place, Washington can more easily
push for add-ons, like trade sanctions, shipping restrictions and freezing
overseas assets. Once having secured the multi-lateral economic isolation
of Iran, Washington can launch its military-air assault with less
opposition and greater acquiescence from Europe and its Mid East clients.

From
Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas to Iran: Another Failed Strategy?

Israel’s representatives in the US government saw the war against Iraq as
a key staging ground for the attack on Iran– as part of a triumphal series
of military conquests turning the Gulf into an Israeli-US
condominium. Together with the Iraq War, the Lobby successfully bulldozed
the US Congress to pass legislation boycotting Syria, another target in
the overall Israeli-Lobby strategy. Lebanon, especially the national
resistance led by Hezbollah is a key piece in the US-Israeli strategy for
militarily attacking Iran. South Lebanon under Hezbollah and Hamas in
Gaza, and other potential allies of Iran, were subsequently targeted for
diplomatic isolation through the UN and militarily for physical
extermination. Each US and Israeli war serves an immediate purpose
(weakening adversaries) and more important forms part of the preparation
for a major attack on Iran. The ‘dual purpose’ wars are designed to
weaken and destroy adversaries to US-Israeli plans for regional dominance
and to create military bases, geographic encirclement and economic
pressure for the ultimate military assault on Iran.

The
Dominos are Falling in the Wrong Places

The
Lobby and the Israeli architects of sequential wars in the Bush
Administration have however suffered several severe setbacks as well as
victories on their road to Teheran.

They
succeeded in destroying the secular nationalist government of Saddam
Hussein and totally crippled Iraq’s defensive military and economic
potential. However they face an unanticipated long-term, large-scale
insurgency that ties down hundreds of thousands of US active military
forces and depletes their reserves, imposes enormous financial costs and
undermines public support for that war and any new military invasion
promoted by the Israeli Lobby.

The
Israel-Lobby-US backed effort to oust Arafat and impose a client regime
opposed to Iran and Hezbollah via elections, backfired: Hamas, an
anti-colonial national movement won the elections. As a result Israel
re-took the path of outright military assaults and massacres to decimate
opposition to its larger Middle East agenda.

The
effort to exterminate Hezbollah in South Lebanon succeeded in ravaging
that country and killing many civilians, but failed its main mission to
clear the way for an uncontested attack on Iran. While Israel failed
militarily, the Lobby and its clients in US Congress and the
Administration succeeded in imposing their joint Israeli/US policy goals
in the infamous UN Resolution 1701 via United Nations and Lebanese
troops. Nevertheless the resolution, while imposing some important
restrictions, is still highly contested: Hezbollah rejects disarmament,
the Lebanese Army, which is nearly 40% Shia, fraternizes with Hezbollah
and doesn’t challenge them and the United Nations troops have no intention
of acting as Israel’s shock troops in provoking a new attack on Hezbollah,
especially after Israel’s deliberate killing of UN peacekeepers.

The
Israel-Lobby-US diplomatic strategy in the United Nations to impose
sanctions on Iran has secured European support for relatively marginal
issues but has failed to secure Russian and Chinese support for a
full-scale embargo. China is negotiating an agreement with Iran on the
enrichment process that may undermine the entire US ‘diplomacy to war’
strategy.

Facing
a series of military and diplomatic obstacles, the Jewish Lobby does not
cease and desist. The Lobby presses ahead with a new campaign to whip up
war fever in the US through the ultra-militant ‘Zionophiles’ John Bolton,
US Ambassador to the UN, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice
President Cheney, President Bush and, of course, the inimitable ‘Chief
Adviser on the Middle East’ Elliot Abrams. Their current position is to
sweep aside all the failed, phony issues and diplomatic proposals and base
the impending military attack of Iran on ideology: The new struggle
between Democracy and ‘Islamo-fascism.’

For
the Israeli Government, a pre-emptive US attack on Teheran would be seen
as weakening another opponent to Israel’s regional dominance. For the
United States, it would open the floodgates of insurgency into Iraq and
beyond, leading to two, three many Iraqs. At some point ‘the chickens may
come home to roost.’ For sacrificing untold numbers of American lives at
the service of a foreign power, the Lobby and its political supporters in
the US Congress will go down in history as traitors to our highest ideals
as a free and independent country.

Failing to secure a US attack on Iran, Israel constantly accelerates its
plans for war with Iran and Syria. Once again the Lobby mounted a massive,
sustained propaganda campaign that claimed that Iran’s President
Ahmadinejad, in a speech on October 2005, declared, “Israel must be wiped
off the map.” The Lobby totally falsified the English translation. In fact
the Iranian President never used the word ‘map’ or the term ‘wiped off’ (Counterpunch,
August 28, 2006). What he actually said was, “[T]his regime that is
occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” Clearly he was
referring to a regime that illegally occupies a city by military conquest,
that reduces its own Arab citizens to discrimination and poverty and which
colonizes the occupied territories. In other words he calls for the
disappearance of a racist colonial regime, not the destruction or removal
of the Jews in Israel. These and other deliberate ‘mistranslations’ are
part of the Lobby’s effort to build up worldwide opprobrium against Iran
and to stigmatize Iran with the worst ‘holocaust-denier’ features, in
order to present an Israeli attack as an act against an ‘Islamo-fascist’
rogue state. From January to March 2006, the Israeli military high command
set in motion war plans to attack Iran -- postponed temporarily as
Washington went through the diplomatic motions. In September, the
London Times (September 3, 2006) reported that, “Israel is preparing
for a possible war with both Iran and Syria.” According to Israeli
political and military sources, “The challenge from Iran and Syria is now
top of the Israeli defense (sic) agenda.”

(1) See The Project for the New American Century: White Paper
Rebuilding American’s Defenses (September 2000), prepared and authored
by the leading American pro-Israel Jewish and non-Jewish ideologues.